Turning Rocks into Art

Japanese artist Hirotoshi Ito doesn’t carve the type of statues that most people might expect of traditional sculptors. Coming from a masonry background, Ito creates sculptures that preserves most of the stone’s original form and texture. Despite this, it’s often difficult to believe that Ito’s sculptures are made of solid rock, as his adept manipulation of the rigid medium makes many of his works appear as they were actually created with a much more malleable material. From laughing rocks with human teeth to unzipped rock pouches filled with seashells, Ito’s imaginative works seem to push the boundary of possibilities. See more of his surreal sculptures below.